In her article entitled "The White Inuit Speaks:  Contamination as Literary Strategy," Diana Brydon cites the work of Lola Lemire Tostevin to define contamination as "differences [that] have been brought together so they make contact" (qtd. 191).  Brydon argues that postcolonial contamination is not only a productive literary strategy, but also a cultural and political project.  As one compares various texts, a "double-pronged analysis" focussing on colonial relations in local realities emerges, one that "looks for the workings of power in specific conditions" (201). 

    It is our hope that bringing together several very different articles relying, in different ways, on such postcolonial analyses will allow this special issue of Deep South to be read not only as a series of individual papers and creative works, but also as a productive site of critical contamination in relation.

    The term 'postcolonial' itself is one of contention.^[1]  Like Brydon herself, our use of the term for the purposes of this introduction and our own work in this issue concurs largely with the definition initially proposed by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin in The Empire Writes Back and later reinforced in The Postcolonial Studies Reader. They contend that the word post-colonial represents the

material effects of colonisation and the huge diversity of everyday and sometimes hidden responses to it throughout the world ... the term 'post-colonial' ... represent[s] the continuing process of imperial suppressions and exchanges throughout this diverse range of societies, in their institutions and their discursive practices. (EWB 3)          

    One of the most important aspects of this definition is that these critics acknowledge the ongoing and often insidious effects of colonization on indigenous peoples. To comprehend how these effects manifest themselves, it is essential to consider the historical foundation of colonization. The Imperial authority that implemented a system of cultural degradation and devaluation needs to be examined before it can be challenged. Imperialist ideologies ensured that indigenous cultures were marginalized and denied the space in which to articulate their own belief systems. Postcolonial literatures and criticism redress this imbalance of power through strategies of disruption, subversion, and critical analysis.

With heightened intercultural interaction in an increasingly global environment, we believe it is more important than ever to develop an understanding of 'other' worlds. One of the most productive, and arguably ethical, ways of establishing moments of cross-cultural understanding insists on the establishment of critical sites centered on the acquisition of 'contaminated' knowledge. Thus, postcolonial works and criticism can allow readers to gain insight into cultures other than their own.  This edition of Deep South is a contribution to this ongoing process of decolonization, a process facilitated by examinations of the crucial roles that colonial and canonical texts have played in creating and maintaining stereotyped perceptions of marginalized cultures.

We begin this issue of Deep South with Josie Carter's paper, an examination of how H. Rider Haggard's She can be read in a way that highlights the flawed nature of imperialism. Carter's reading of She reveals the British Empire as an imaginative formation and social construct and explores the degeneration of the notion of empire itself.  Her reading highlights the importance of engaging with colonial texts to destabilize the authority of imperialist ideologies and to create a textual and perceptual space where marginalized cultures can be located.  We think it is important to recognize that postcolonial criticism is not limited to texts written in what might be termed post-colonial times; indeed, examinations of colonial texts through the lens of postcolonial criticism plays an essential role in the continuing fight against neocolonialism.

To examine how this textual decolonization can take place in contemporary work, we explore Thomas King's use of trickster strategies in Green Grass, Running Water. King (re)visions Native Canadian cultural identity to defy the stereotyped images of indigenous cultures that are rife throughout colonial texts such as She. He achieves this through undermining canonical and colonial texts and popular culture to create a revised understanding of Native Canadian cultures through allowing readers access to an indigenous-centred space. This space functions to ensure that Native people in Canada are not presented as flat, uni-dimensional caricatures fixed by the colonial gaze; rather, King places contemporary cultures, continuing traditions, and evolving histories at the centre of his work and illustrates the living nature of Canadian Native realities. 

While our paper on Green Grass, Running Water is closely tied to postcolonial literary theories, both Shalmalee Parker and Patricia McLean question the theoretical boundaries established by Western postcolonial theoretical discourse.  In her essay on Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, Patricia McLean examines how Emecheta's text resists Western-based theories of feminism and nationalism. Emphasizing the difficulties that arise when African women's writing is analysed within Western postcolonial and feminist theories, this paper explicates the ways in which African women's experience is often manipulated to fit theoretical arguments. Through their resistance to acts of symbolic typecasting, the women characters in The Joys of Motherhood emerge as potential agents of transformation, roles African male writers have denied them and Western theorists have distorted or misunderstood. In this way, Emecheta moves beyond Western ideals of "power" to present an indigenous-centered ideology where empowerment is focused on—and facilitated by the experiences of African women.

    Shalmalee Parker, likewise, questions the traditional boundaries of postcolonial criticism through her examination of the work of Prabha Ganorkar. She contends that Ganorkar is not identified as a postcolonial poet because she focuses on region rather than nation, and on the individual rather than collective experience. Parker argues that the theoretical postcolonial framework focusing on fixed binaries wrongly excludes poets such as Ganorkar, a poet who does not deal explicitly with postcolonial themes, but who does write out of a postcolonial context. Parker asserts Ganorkar is a postcolonial writer;  her poetry is transformative and, when read in light of postcolonial ideas, works against colonial ideology in regional terms through challenging the dominant cultural discourse/authority.

    Thus, this last paper, in particular, answers a theoretical challenge to postcolonial studies which each paper here addresses in some way:  as Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge argue, "smaller recits must replace the grand recit of postcolonialism. [...]  In these smaller recits it may well be that the term 'postcolonial' is never used" (44).  However, it is as a result of a theoretical focus on the postcolonial that we were able to bring together these papers in the forum of Deep South.  In addition, we have also included various creative works which, when read alongside the critical papers, promote the active dialogue between the creative and the critical central to postcolonial studies. 

    We will not seek here to force connections between these creative works, nor will we conclude in a way that insinuates a final statement on postcolonialism or the work contained in this site is possible.  Instead, we encourage readers to critically enjoy the mixture of genres, time periods, and cultures here explored as part of what Brydon identifies as a

new globalism [which] simultaneously asserts local independence and global interdependencies.  It seeks a way to cooperate without cooption, a way to define differences that do not depend on myths of cultural purity or authenticity but that thrive on an interaction that 'contaminates' without homogenising. (196)

    Thus, it is our hope that this heterogenous exploration of the postcolonial might lead to intertextual contamination and, indeed, contribute in some way to the contamination of the readers' worlds with a greater awareness of the postcolonial.

 

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WORKS CITED

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and practice in post-colonial literatures. London; New York: Routledge, 1989.

Brydon, Diana.  "The White Inuit Speaks:  Contamination as Literary Strategy," Past the Last Post:  Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism.  Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin (Eds.).  Calgary: University of Calgary P, 1990.  191-204.

Mishra, Vijay and Bob Hodge. "What is post(-)colonialism?," Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader.  John Frow and Meaghan Morris (Eds).  Urbana:  U of Illinois P, 1993. 30-46.

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[1] There are many articles and books debating the use value and critical applications of the term 'postcolonial'.  For a critique of Ashcroft et al's The Empire Writes Back specifically, see Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge's "What is post(-)colonialism?" in Australian Cultural Studies:  A Reader.  John Frow and Meaghan Morris (Eds).  Urbana:  U of Illinois P, 1993.  30-46.  Although we agree with many points raised by Mishra and Hodge, for the purposes of this introduction Ashcroft et al.'s seminal text is very useful.